Monthly Archives: April 2017

I know most of the library acquisitions in the bunker have been to get us prepared for the coming conflagration, but as we suffer through the death throes of society, I can’t help but think of the need for some humour. Things will be grim. We need laughs.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?

And in close quarters for long periods of time, we will need all the elegant snark we can get:

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.

Barbara Pym is a must, too, though her sadly disappointed characters might also be a tad depressing at times. Dorothy Parker without question: mordant wit may be among our few escapes from the gloom. Gaskell‘s Cranford stories for quieter times, when you want to know the ladies have got your back. And Georgette Heyer for when you’ve just finished re-reading all the Austen and can’t bear another dull conversation about cleaning out the air vents.